Contents
Contents
Conservation of Mass
Conservation Series
Intro
Instructor’s Guide
Table of Contents
Chem 101
2
2
2
2
2
2
3
3
Resources
Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
When to Use this Video. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Learning Objective. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Motivation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Student Experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Key Information. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Video Highlights. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Video Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Chem 101 Materials. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Pre-Video Materials. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Post-Video Materials. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Additional Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Going Further . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Developed by the Teaching and Learning Laboratory at MIT
for the Singapore University of Technology and Design
Conservation: Conservation of Mass
© 2012 MIT
Page 1
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Introduction
Prior knowledge: basic stoichiometry
Learning Objective
After watching this video, students will be able to apply the law of conservation of mass to real-world scenarios.
Duration: 10:39
Narrator: Prof. Mark Bathe
Materials Needed:
• Paper
• Pen/pencil
Motivation
•
•
Contents
•
In Chem 101, at home or in recitation, before
Lecture #3: Stoichiometry
Many students have a hard time using the law of conservation of mass correctly when
reasoning about real-world phenomena, or neglect to use it entirely.
Emphasizing conservation of mass early in the curriculum will provide scaffolding for
future engineering courses.
Student Experience
Chem 101
•
Key Information
Intro
Intro
When to Use this Video
During the video, students will:
•
Select a control volume to aid their calculations.
•
Calculate unknown quantities using stoichiometry.
•
•
Identify the mass entering, exiting, and accumulating in the control volume.
Check their solutions against the video.
Conservation: Conservation of Mass
© 2012 MIT
Page 2
Resources
It is highly recommended that the video is paused when prompted so that students are able to attempt the
activities on their own and then check their solutions against the video.
Video Highlights
This table outlines a collection of activities and important ideas from the video.
3:33
Students apply conservation of mass to
a rusty car.
After selecting a control volume, students use the
law of mass conservation to determine the amount
of reactants and products that must have entered
and exited the control volume given a certain
increase in mass of the plant.
After selecting a control volume, students use the
law of mass conservation to determine the amount
of reactants and products that must have entered
and exited the control volume given a certain
decrease in mass of a rusty car.
Contents
This may be a new concept for your students.
Resources
6:55
Comments
Intro
Intro
1:05
1:22
Feature
Prerequisite Knowledge and Learning
Objectives
Time lapse video of a plant growing
Students are introduced to the concept
of a control volume.
Students apply conservation of mass to
an example of a growing plant.
Chem 101
Time
0:37
Video Summary
This video reviews the law of conservation of mass and basic stoichiometry. Students are introduced
to control volumes as a conceptual tool to aid in problem solving. Students use the concepts of mass
conservation and control volumes to find unknown information in examples about a growing plant
(photosynthesis) and a rusting car (iron oxidation).
Conservation: Conservation of Mass
© 2012 MIT
Page 3
Chem 101 Materials
1. To motivate the importance of using conservation laws to explain real-world phenomena,
watch a brief video clip from the “Lessons from Thin Air” video, part of the “Minds of Our
Own” video series produced by the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. This video
clip can be found online at http://www.learner.org/vod/vod_window.html?pid=77.
During minutes 4:00-5:47, Harvard graduates are asked about the origin of mass in trees.
When asked whether CO2 could be a primary source of the mass, students react with disbelief
that a gas could be the source of a tree’s mass. Play the video clip and then ask your students
what they think. Where do they think a tree’s mass comes from?
2. Because many students do think of gases as “massless” continue to discuss this topic with your
students. Ask your students, “In a reaction where a gas is produced, is mass still conserved? Why
or why not?”
Resources
Intro
Chem
Chem 101
Pre-Video Materials
Contents
When appropriate, this guide is accompanied by additional materials to aid in the delivery of some of the
following activities and discussions.
Conservation: Conservation of Mass
© 2012 MIT
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Post-Video Materials
1. Have students form groups of two or three. Each group should come up with an example or
scenario where people might consider mass to have been “lost”. Groups should then present
their example to the rest of the class along with an analysis of why the mass wasn’t lost after all.
For example, students might think of composting. What happens to biomass in a compost pile?
Or students might think of a human that has lost “weight”? Where did that mass go?
Resources
Chem
Chem 101
Note: Students may have questions about the equivalency of mass and energy (E=mc2). In
chemical reactions, the amount of mass that might be converted into another form of energy
(and vice versa) is so small that mass and energy can be thought of as separately conserved. In
nuclear reactions, however, a significant conversion of mass to energy may occur. Thus, the law
of conservation of mass can no longer be applied separately from conservation of energy.
Intro
Contents
Use the following activities to reinforce and extend the concepts in the video.
Conservation: Conservation of Mass
© 2012 MIT
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Additional Resources
Your students will use the law of conservation of mass throughout their undergraduate experience, but will
most likely see it in differential form. Have students derive the differential form of the mass conservation
law by shrinking the control volume to the size of a differential volume element.
References
Contents
Going Further
•
–Video Lecture #1 discusses Lavoisier’s experiment.
The following resources discuss students’ conceptions of conservation of mass, particularly as applied to
real-world scenarios.
•
Hartley, L., Wilke, B., Schramm, J., D’Avanzo, C., Anderson, C. (2011). College Students’
Understanding of the Carbon Cycle: Contrasting Principle-based and Informal Reasoning.
Bioscience, 61(1), 65-75.
Resources
Resources
•
Schneps, M., Sahiner, A., Jones, W., Arterberry, M. (Producers), (1997). Minds of Our Own
[DVD]. Available from http://www.learner.org/vod/vod_window.html?pid=77
Chem 101
Cummins, Christopher, and Sylvia Ceyer. 5.112 Principles of Chemical Science, Fall 2005.
(Massachusetts Institute of Technology: MIT OpenCourseWare), http://ocw.mit.edu
(Accessed 22 Dec, 2011). License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
Intro
The following MIT Open CourseWare lecture discusses Lavoisier’s experiment.
Conservation: Conservation of Mass
© 2012 MIT
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http://ocw.mit.edu
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